Nomadic virtual exploration
Mission presented a juxtaposition between the transient population and their relationship – or lack of – to the virtual landscape and virtual identities. Live footage of the local citizenry and their avatar equivalent provided parallels in a surreal, animated terrain. The cinematic construct was designed for a large-scale architectural projection, which wrapped the corner of a storage building in the proximity of a Baptist Mission.

“Mission” is a word with multiple definitions: It can refer to a group of people, a journey, or a building. In choosing this word as the title for her site-specific video projection, Danielle Roney embraces all three. The mobility of place and people, which lies at the heart of this piece, was suggested by the work’s particular surroundings. The nearby Baptist Mission suggests themes of the temporal storage of misplaced and transient peoples while human storage in the form of architecture is suggested by the structural building that serves as the site for the piece.

Rather than project on a single façade, Roney has chosen the difficult task of wrapping the digitally-produced video around the corner of the building. This provides an extended landscape for her personal footage of mobile citizenry (many who frequent the Baptist Mission itself) wrapped within Roney’s virtual, utopian landscape. Avatars revolve through and around these isolated humans, parallel inhabitants of their day to day existence.
-Rebecca Dimling Cochran, curator

Arts critic, Catherine Fox states,
Danielle Roney’s ” Mission ” gets the award for sophistication, thoughtfulness and layered revelation of the term ”site-specific.” The video projection, whose protagonists were people from the nearby Union Mission, simultaneously called attention to those in the shadow of the party and invited them in.